Failing Grades DO NOT Equal Safe Grades

In inspections conducted in 2005 and 2006, the bridge received ratings. On a scale of one to nine, nine being perfectly safe, this bridge received a four. What does that mean?

That was the gist of a question by Jim Lehrer (NewsHour, PBS, 8/2/07) about the Bridge Too Broken in Minneapolis. The answer given on the program is not even at issue for me. What matters is that it is 2007 and the Bridge Too Broken (I35W Bridge, collapsed August 1, 2007) had been failing for TWO YEARS!!!

The Bridge Too Broken received failing grades as far back as 1990. It was rated for a 50 percent chance of catastrophic failure in 2005 and 2006. That's worse than Russian Roulette. At least if you're foolish enough to play that game, you've only got a 1 in 6 chance of blowing your own head off.

Now, if the bridge were a heart-lung machine, and received a rating that meant essentially sometime in the next months, there was a 50 percent chance of catastrophic failure, there would have been immediate action. If failure would result in patient death, the medical profession would have insisted the hospital where such a machine was located, would replace the machine. No medical roulette. Just a fix or replacement. Pronto.

If the Bridge Too Broken were a toy having a 50 percent chance, at one time or the other before repair of causing mayhem, or death to a child, the toy would be recalled. Perhaps millions of such toys.

If the Bridge Too Broken were a food, such as say hamburger, with even a 10 percent chance of infecting people eating that food with some serious disease, the food would be recalled. The machinery used in making that food would be replaced or repaired, and life would go on.

But it's a bridge. Repairs aren't flashy. In fact, if the bridge had been fixed, after spending millions or even a billion dollars, the result would have been a bridge that looked essentially the same as it looked last year. Or the year before. Or the decade before.

Nope, not flashy. And not what we have right now.

It's not just bridges. It's everything here in the United States that brings cars from place to place, people from place to place, water, sewage, electricity, heating and those things we take for granted to us as we go about life without danger to life and limb. And not one bit of it is flashy.

We can sell billions of weapons to the wealthiest countries and call it "Military Aid". We can plunge billions into voting machines that don't work accurately, then hold off on fixing them because the fixing might be a tad chaotic. (Or we could have an election with paper and pencils and people counting the votes, using tally sheets. Just like countries that have democratic processes that work very well thank you, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France and even Iraq.)

Yes, we brought democracy to Iraq, but didn't even think of putting those electronic gizmo's that can be hacked into all the poling places because they don't have the infrastructure to support them. They don't have the electricity, and without electricity, the whiz-bang voting machines wouldn't even appear secure to the voters.

But I digress.

We are so intent on building the flashy stuff. We are like magpies, accruing the shiny bits in our surroundings that we forget a nest that isn't secure won't support the living creatures that will be born there and grow up there. A bird, no matter how much flash they want to entice a mate, pays attention first to the infrastructure. If they return year after year to the same nest, they repair first, bring the flashy bits later.

Flash is an afterthought. Infrastructure is a constant need.

We've spent the past decades presuming that since the bridges, roads, steam pipes, electric grids, and water systems we depend upon work, that those things will work forever. Without repair. Without structural integrity. We presume the bridge will be there even if the bridge receives failing grades for TWO YEARS!!!

We are wrong.

We are willing to take chances with our lives, and the lives of babies, mothers and school children to spend more on those shiny weapons for wealthy nations, or to bomb others into the stone age.

The purpose of government is to promote the public welfare. None of us, not one of us, is wealthy enough to be able to afford to construct all the parts of infrastructure that serve us daily, but only building those parts large enough to support each of us alone. We have government for that.

We have concentrated our public building on stadiums and sports arenas, forgetting that fans won't show up if they are lying at the bottom of a river after attempting to attend a game in one of those flashy, shiny new stadiums built with public dollars.

We allow ourselves to use aging and unsafe infrastructure on a daily basis. If the supports of our own homes were inspected and given a failing grade, we would replace or repair. Why don't we have the same urgency about roads that receive failing grades for multiple years in a row?

A Bridge Too Broken

The 35W bridge that fell in my hometowns (Twin Cities) is right near the Stone Arch Bridge, which is a new bridge that looks old, and the Cedar Avenue Bridge, which is about the same vintage as the one that collapsed, within a decade or so.

In those frightening moments last evening, at least 9 people died (and counting) and many more nearly died. Huge numbers were injured. And the bridge that fell, the one resting at the bottom of the river, is a bridge that was unsafe. It was unsafe for TWO CONSECUTIVE YEARS OF INSPECTIONS.

The bridge that fell was a truss design, with the supports in the edges of the river, where current would be low, except during high water, flood conditions and storm surges. It was designed to last at least 50 years (refund anyone?) with normal traffic. Around here, traffic is equal to or worse than LA. There is no normal traffic, ever.

You can figure out if it was stress, poor maintenance, failure to address failing inspections, or just dumb bad luck.

Gov. Pawlenty (of Sen. McCain Campaign fame) is now saying that the bridge had a clean bill of health, all was well, and the collapse was never ever anticipated. That happens to be untrue, but What The H(eck).

You see, even as I write this, others are trying to rewrite history. To wit: Governor Pawlenty, who just this last legislative session vetoed a bill that would have provided $6 Billion for transportation and transit from dedicated auto sales tax receipts and a tax hike. That was money for road repair and to get more cars off the hellish roads we call the Interstates.

Of course, the failing grades of that very bridge during 2005 AND 2006 inspections were of no apparent matter as he vetoed that legislation. Yes, it did contain a tax increase that the public supported to the tune of more than 70 percent. When it gets to 70 percent, the feeling is mainstream, and the people want it.

After all, bridges don't fall, only political careers get dropped in the river and drowned. Right? Check http://www.attytood.com/2007/08/memo_bridge_failure_determined.html from Attytood. Yeah, I can hear it now. I'm just a bleeding heart liberal, beating on about drowned citizen. Don't even think of replying with an insult related to my views on our misplaced spending priorities.

We cannot hear the cries of those that drowned. Their voices cannot rise from the murk that is our beloved part of the Big Muddy. They cannot escape their watery graves to cry out that we are totally missing the fact that there are something in the neighborhood of 60,000 bridges that aren't safe and for which there will be no infrastructure funding for repairs.

We gotta run a war after all.

We gotta keep the money flowing where it can be seen, 'cuz so one actually cares about stuff you can't see, after all. Like bridge supports. And sewer pipes. And drinking water systems.

The state governor, Tim Pawlenty, said: "Obviously, this is a catastrophe of historic proportions for Minnesota."

The US president, George Bush, pledged help. "We in the federal government must respond, and respond robustly, to help the people there not only recover, but to make sure that lifeline of activity - that bridge - gets rebuilt as quickly as possible," he said in Washington.

Mr Pawlenty said the Minnesota department of transportation had inspected the 40-year-old bridge in 2005 and 2006, finding no structural problems. "There were some minor things that needed attention," he added.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2140291,00.html

But hey, I'm not angry that there are multiple cars stacked on multiple cars at the bottom of the Mississippi in an area of the most treacherous currents in the Twin Cities BECAUSE A FREAKING BRIDGE COLLAPSED THAT WAS ALREADY LABELLED AS UNSAFE TWO FREAKING YEARS AGO!!!

AND ONE YEAR AGO!!!

Phew, that feels better.

BTW, go give a pint of blood, no matter where you are. It's summer and the stocks of the real elixer of life are running dangerously low everywhere. Contact your local hospital or Red Cross for further information.

Be well, safe and don't drive on unsafe bridges. Please.

And tell someone, tell everyone that will listen. Tell them this. We need to fix that which is about to break. It's going to take money. It needs to be done now. The Wars aren't the only things that can do us in. Losing lives, losing treasure because we sent the money to buy bombs and bombers has gotten us a broken bridge in Minnesota and too many broken hearts.

We can't bring back those that died. We cannot magically correct and heal the injuries inflicted yesterday. But, we can and we must, work to prevent another person drowning, another family torn asunder through injury or death that was preventable if we'd only repaired what needed fixing before it was too broken.

It's one bridge too broken in Minnesota. It's not to late for the rest of the 60,000 bridges that need repair. Yet.